


let the valleys awake, let them rattle and shake

by ravenditefairylights



Series: noldolantë [11]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Cultural Differences, Family Bonding, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Personal Growth, Platonic Relationships, doriath court and family dynamics, what's a tag for realizing there is a war going on around you that leaves an impact on everyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:27:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28360080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenditefairylights/pseuds/ravenditefairylights
Summary: Doriath is safe, Luthien knows, but everywhere else isn’t. It’s not that she hadn’t heard stories about the outside world before, but stories can only tell you so much, she knows that now. There’s a war going on. There are really people outside her country’s borders who live in fear, who die and lose loved ones, who are aware of just how fleeting their life can be in a way Luthien never considered elves could. Elves are immortal after all; what is death to them? Their lives are not fleeting, they are eternal. Elves have no reason to be concerned with death; and yet it seems, the closer you find yourself to it, the less immune to the thought you become.or Luthien makes some realizations of her own
Relationships: Daeron & Lúthien Tinúviel, Elu Thingol | Elwë Singollo/Melian
Series: noldolantë [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2122167
Comments: 7
Kudos: 17
Collections: Tolkien Secret Santa 2020





	let the valleys awake, let them rattle and shake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ArlenianChronicles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArlenianChronicles/gifts).



> this is my tolkien secret santa gift to [arlenianchronicles](https://arlenianchronicles.tumblr.com/)!!!! i'm not sure if this was what you had in mind, but i hope you like it. 
> 
> some background notes:  
> \- this takes place during F.A. 456 - 464 (aka after the Dagor Bragollach where Fingolfin dies and shortly before Beren shows up at Doriath)  
> \- elenya is [my oc,](https://feanoriansappreciation.tumblr.com/post/631759864639668224/finweanladiesweek-day-6-original-characters) who i don't talk ab enough for how much i love her
> 
> title taken from [thus always to tyrants](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga0ojr2m31Y) by the oh hellos
> 
> my eternal gratitude to [my friend kthekryptid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KTheKryptid/pseuds/KTheKryptid) for beta reading this,,,, i know i have a character flaw and that's my unnecessary use of commas and semicolons and i appreciate you calling me out but listen, i will not apologize

Doriath has always been a quiet place, and Menegroth even more so.

The reason for that, of course, has been her mother, Melian the Maia, Queen Melian, consort to the King of Doriath, Elu Thingol. With the powers gifted to her from the Heavens, her inner connection to nature and all living things, Queen Melian built a girdle to enclose Doriath inside and keep it safe from the forces of Morgoth. Ever since then, Doriath has been the safest place in Beleriand.

Luthien has always known that. Doriath is safe, she knows, but everywhere else isn’t. It’s not that she hadn’t heard stories about the outside world before, but stories can only tell you so much, she knows that now. It wasn’t until Elenya came to Menegroth two years ago, that it really hit Luthien.

 _There’s a war going on._ There are really people outside her country’s borders who live in fear, who die and lose loved ones, who are aware of just how fleeting their life can be in a way Luthien never considered elves could. Elves are immortal after all; what is death to them? Their lives are not fleeting, they are eternal. Elves have no reason to be concerned with death; and yet it seems, the closer you find yourself to it, the less immune to the thought you become.

Elenya is young, around forty years old, too little to know anything much about how the world works. At her age, Luthien was running around the palace as her governess chased after her, playing with her handmaidens at the streams in the back of the caves, dancing and trying to make new friends. Her biggest concern was that her father wouldn’t let her out of someone’s sight for any length of time, worried Luthien might get hurt.

Elenya came to Menegroth with her mother, Aldana of Doriath, one of the noblewomen in the Queen’s court. She came because her aunt, Lady Aldana’s sister, died protecting her at the battle of Dagor Bragollach—a battle that by all means Elenya should have never been close to, much less participate in. Luthien knows because she overheard her mother furiously whispering so to her father once right after Aldana and Elenya came—intentionally, she had thought her parents had been weird about the whole thing and dragged Daeron to eavesdrop with her—that Elenya was dragged off by a party of orcs, and it’s only thanks to her father that she was brought back unharmed.

Her father, Luthien also knows, is Celegorm the Fair, one of the seven sons of Fëanor. A Noldo. She’s heard stories about them, too; the only Noldor that come to Doriath these days are her cousins. Galadriel lives here, and Angrod comes to visit sometimes—though he’s dead now, and so is his brother, Aegnor. Ororeth, Angrod’s son, went to live with Finrod, but Finrod never visits that often and Luthien hopes Orodreth at least might visit more often. She’s had a small family her whole life—her, her parents and her uncle and cousins—and it’s nice to have so many people to be related to.

Luthien knows that her father despises the Noldor because they killed some of their people in the shores of Valinor. It’s a reasonable reason to hate someone; Luthien used to think that someone—an elf, even!—who is willing to take the life of a compatriot must be of the most vile kind of elf. An Avar, for example. Luthien knows her father trades with nice Avari elves, just as she knows that there are Avari elves that are not nearly as nice. To see how fondly Elenya speaks of her father and her uncles, with how much love… Luthien wasn’t expecting that.

Father said the Fëanorians were vile people, so that must be true. Luthien loves her father, respects his words and his decisions, and she’s never found herself in a position quite like this before—she’s never disagreed with him on anything substantial. But Luthien finds herself remembering how her father had wanted to forbid Elenya entrance to Menegroth, how her mother had so vehemently disagreed. How shocked she had been to overhear that, to know that her father was the kind of person capable of forbidding a child shelter because he didn’t like her father. His argument then had been that Elenya didn’t want to be here, so they could send her back.

So, it really is true that everyone is capable of pettiness and holding grudges; even elves. Luthien had never before thought of that—no one held grievances in Menegroth, what was there to be aggrieved about? Their lives were great, their food plenty, their houses safe.

Queen Melian took Elenya under her wing in the same way she had with Galadriel. Her mother made Elenya part of her court, taught her magic the same way Luthien remembers being taught herself, let her run around as much as she wanted. Luthien thinks this might be what having a little sister would be like; her mother would teach her things, and let Luthien supervise and teach as well, let Elenya play in the gardens. Only, maybe if Luthien had a little sister, her father should like her too.

Luthien finds that she likes having someone younger than her to teach and spend time with, someone who’ll look up at her.

“I just think you should let it go,” Daeron says. They’re walking together through the back path of the Queen’s garden, where Elenya usually spends most of her time. “The King has said—”

“The King has said this, and the King has said that!” Luthien sighs. “Do you always live by what other people tell you to do? Don’t you ever just want to do something for yourself? Besides, I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I want to know.”

“She’s barely forty, Luthien,” Daeron points out. “She was so young when the Dagor Bragollach broke out.”

“I know,” Luthien says. She fixes her dress a little, so it doesn’t get too dirty at the edges.

“Getting tangled up into it and getting abducted by orcs must have been a highly traumatic experience for her,” Daeron continues.

“I know,” Luthien repeats with a sigh.

“She probably doesn’t want to talk about it at all,” Daeron goes on. “Perhaps it’d be best if—”

“I _know,_ Daeron,” Luthien says in exasperation. “And I won’t press her if she doesn’t want to talk about it! I really won’t!” she continues when Daeron gives her a doubtful look. “But I just… I just need to know.”

“I don’t understand why you’re so set on this,” Daeron sighs. He crosses his arms over his chest and continues to walk right next to her. “So, there’s a war going on out there. That’s nothing we didn’t already know! How many times have Beleg and Mablung told us about orcs and bandits trying to penetrate the girdle border? Didn’t the Noldor say they came here _for_ the war, and asked us for lands? Didn’t we know Morgoth was here wreaking havoc?”

“Of course we knew that,” Luthien says. “We _know_ that. But it’s… different.”

Daeron sighs, like he doesn’t understand why they keep having this conversation, but he still asks; “Different how?”

“Different because she lived through it,” Luthien says. “It’s different because… have you seen her face? The scar on her face?”

“Everyone’s seen that scar on her face,” Daeron says. “She stood with her mother in front of the whole court, remember? Bit hard to miss such an ugly scar going down all the way on the left side of her face.”

“Exactly,” Luthien says fervently. She feels dizzy with the need to make her point, the words in her disposal not enough to illustrate what she means to say, what she’s feeling. “No one has scars like that here!”

“Well, we don’t get lots of orcs here,” Daeron points out. “So, of course, no one gets hurt like that.”

“Yes, but that’s the whole thing, isn’t it?” Luthien tells him. “We don’t have war _here,_ but everywhere else has! Everyone else is suffering! My cousins died in that last battle, isn’t that a little…”

“A little what?” Daeron asks when she trails off. “I mean, it’s sad—dying must always be sad, right? It’s always sad in the ballads. And Celeborn is running over the place trying to cheer Lady Galadriel up.”

“But you don’t care,” Luthien says. She stops, turns to look in his eyes as she says it. She needs to see; Daeron would never lie to her, but she needs to _see._ Daeron stops too, and blinks at her. She can see that he wasn’t expecting her to be quite so blunt.

“No,” Daeron says at length. “I guess I don’t care. I didn’t know Lady Galadriel’s brothers. Do you care? Is that what this is about? Are you having a crisis because someone you know died? Are you having a crisis about the weight of mortality?”

“I’m not having a _crisis,_ ” Luthien huffs. “Just… does it never hit you that there’s a war out there? That it’s destroying people? Families? Just… so much suffering. Doesn’t that make you sad? Guilty?”

“No,” Daeron says. “The people who fight in the war knew what they were getting into, didn’t they? The Noldor did. They came here for the war.”

“But what about all of those who didn’t want to get into this?” Luthien asks. “What about the people who don’t want to have anything to do with the war? They get dragged into it and get hurt anyway. Isn’t that unfair?”

“It is,” Daeron says after a pause. “But what are we supposed to do about it? We can’t ask them all to come to Doriath—we couldn’t possibly sustain that many refugees. And we can’t send our people there either. Very little of us know how to fight. We need them here.”

“I know that,” Luthien says. She _knows_ that short of defeating Morgoth once and for all, there aren’t really many things they can do to stop the war. Doriath has never participated in battles before—but shouldn’t they also help? They live here. Wouldn’t it only be fair to loan some of their army to help defeat Morgoth? Then a lot of people wouldn’t have to suffer.

It’s just not _fair._ Who asks for war?

In front of them, the walked-over paths and the tall trees on their sides give way to a clearing with a large pavilion in the middle. Elenya is sitting on the steps, turning something around in her hands. Luthien has heard Lord Oropher say—with insult intended—that Elenya looks just like her father. The girl took it as a compliment, but she didn’t look half as excited to be compared to her mother, a few moments later.

Elenya’s dress is long, a white and green thing that Luthien vaguely recognizes; it might be hers, actually, she gifted a lot of dresses and jewellery to Elenya when she first came to visit the palace. Her feet are bare, much like Luthien’s own, and her hair is a mess of wild curls the colour of strawberry silver. Her eyes, though Luthien can’t see them from that distance, are green like springtime leaves.

If Luthien didn’t know how Lord Oropher intended his words as an insult, she would have thought it was the highest compliment. After all, despite the scar on her face, Elenya looks very beautiful.

It really is a pain, Luthien thinks, to be beautiful. Men always think they’re entitled to tell you just how beautiful they think you are.

“Elenya!” she calls, putting all her cheer and bubbliness in the shout. Elenya startles, almost dropping what she’s holding, but when she looks up and spots Luthien, she smiles.

“Princess Luthien!” Elenya calls back, still smiling, and jumps to her feet to run her way over to them and launch herself into Luthien’s arms. Daeron stands there awkwardly, but Luthien laughs and hugs the girl back.

“No need to address me so formally,” Luthien tells her. “Just Luthien will do. Say hi to Daeron—I dragged him all the way here against his will.”

Elenya looks up from where her face is pressed against Luthien’s side. “Hi, Lord Daeron.”

“Hello,” Daeron says back, sounding stiff and awkward. Luthien rolls her eyes at him, and steers Elenya back to the pavilion.

“What are you doing here all by yourself?” she asks as they sit down, pulling Elenya next to her until the girl is sitting almost pressed against her side. “There’s a conference today—so many people are going to visit! Don’t you want to meet them? Some of them have nice and weird clothes.”

“Mom wasn’t paying attention to me again,” Elenya said. Her hands are closed tightly around what she’s holding; tightly enough that Luthien can’t even make out the shape of the object.

“I’m sure your mother is just busy,” Luthien says, feeling a little concerned at how often Elenya’s mother seems to not pay attention to her. “It’s the conference day, after all. But you know you’re always welcome to come here whenever you want.”

“It’s better than when she yells,” Elenya shrugs, her hands clasping the object even tighter. Luthien can see her knuckles turn white from the grip and frowns.

“What is that you have here?” she asks, trying to sound as curious and non-judgmental as possible. Elenya is not—well, she’s definitely not skittish, but there’s a hard line to her mouth and eyes when she closes off, and Luthien doesn’t want to scare her into it.

“It’s a present,” Elenya says, sounding extremely proud. “From my dad. He sends me presents all the time. Mom hides them—she thinks if she keeps hiding them, I’ll think he doesn’t send me any and I’ll stop waiting for them. She hates that he’s still sending me things. But I’m good at finding things.”

“Oh,” Luthien says, and then recovers with a smile. “I’m sure it’s very nice to get presents from your father. You must miss him a lot.”

“I do,” Elenya nods. “But dad would never forget to send me presents. He would _never,_ ” she insists. Luthien doesn’t disagree. It’s not her place to give Elenya opinions about her father; everyone else seems to be doing that just fine. “It’s a dagger!” Elenya tells her, smiling excitedly. She eases her grip, and Luthien looks down at the weapon in her hands. It’s a beautiful dagger; bronze, with a hilt carved with intricate designs of trees and leaves, the double-edged blade so sharp and polished that Luthien can see her reflection on it clearly.

“A dagger?” Daeron asks. He sounds reproachful, but Elenya is clearly so happy about it that she doesn’t notice. For good measure, Luthien elbows him discreetly in the ribs.

“Yeah!” Elenya says excitedly. “Look, it’s handmade! Dad said Tyelpe helped him make it! He sent me a bow and a quiver for my begetting day a few months ago.”

“Clearly, your father knows what you like,” Luthien says. She’s only seen Elenya this excited before when Melian teaches her new tricks, or when Luthien made her try on some of her old dresses. It’s nice, Luthien decides, to be able to make someone smile like that.

“He’s the best,” Elenya says, with no small amount of pride. Daeron makes a face, and Luthien hits him again. “Mom never lets me do things I like. I always have to sit properly, and dress nicely and not get my clothes dirty. She says I have to be convenient, not a chore.”

“Well, dressing nicely and sitting properly might come handy to you in the future,” Luthien says. “Don’t I always have to dress nicely and sit properly in meetings?”

“Those are so _boring,_ ” Elenya says. “Everyone’s just bragging and fighting with each other with courtesy, like uncle Nelyo showed me. I told Queen Melian I didn’t want to attend those anymore.”

“Mn, but when you get a bit older, won’t you want to attend the parties?” Luthien asks. “You might make friends there. Won’t that be nice?”

“Friends are nice,” Elenya agrees. “I don’t have any of them yet.”

“Ah, but you’re such a talented young lady!” Luthien exclaims, and Elenya’s big green eyes focus on her, unwavering. “So clever! And so interesting too, who wouldn’t want to be friends with you? You and I are friends, aren’t we?”

Elenya nods. “Queen Melian said you’re nice like a big sister, princess Luthien,”

“Ah, what have I said about calling me princess?” Luthien asks, and Elenya smiles sheepishly back. “But it’s true Daeron and I aren’t here to take a walk. Elenya, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Okay,” Elenya says. Sometimes, she looks at people like Luthien’s mother does, with patient and knowing eyes, and Luthien has to remember that Elenya is just a child, no matter what her mother says about ‘the gift’. Luthien herself never had the gift of foresight, and she’s not sure she really wants to. “What’s wrong?”

“Do you remember why you and your mother came here?” Luthien asks gently. She promised she wasn’t going to push Elenya if she didn’t want to talk about it, but Luthien wants to understand what it’s like to be out there, to have to live with uncertainty all the time. More of all, Luthien wants to know if her father is wrong.

It was a notion never entertained, before. But now… now Luthien needs to know.

“Auntie died,” Elenya tells her, like she understands the full weight of the word. Luthien is older, and yet she can’t say the same. “And the dragon made the orcs chase me. Mom thought it was all dad and uncle Kano’s fault, so she got mad and wanted to leave. Dad said it wasn’t his fault, but that Doriath was going to be safer, so I should listen to mom and go.”

“Is Himlad very different from Menegroth?” Luthien asks. Daeron looks at her in a way that’s probably meant to be a warning, but Luthien ignores him.

“It’s a forest,” Elenya shrugs. “Just not the same kind of forest. The trees are smaller, their leaves are darker. Dad said I shouldn’t go out alone because there might be orcs lurking around. We went to uncle Kano’s fortress in Maglor’s Gap because I asked dad to let me go there for the spring—uncle Kano promised to teach me more music, and I wanted to. The dragon wasn’t supposed to show up.”

“Dragons must be terrible,” Luthien says. She’s never heard anything about them before; they’re huge, they say, deadly. “I can’t imagine ever seeing one.”

“It was huge,” Elenya nods. She doesn’t appear too bothered talking about this, and Luthien wonders if Elenya doesn’t understand entirely, if she hasn’t processed what it really means. “Its eyes were green, and it talked in my head.” Elenya points at her temple. “And everyone started panicking when the fire broke out and the orcs attacked, but I’ve seen orcs before.”

“Oh,” Luthien says. “Really?”

“Mn,” Elenya says. “They cross the borders sometimes, and you have to kill them before they kill you. I know how to do that.”

“You… you know how to kill orcs?” Luthien asks. She sounds as surprised as she is; she can’t imagine anyone teaching her that now, much less when she was younger.

“Yeah,” Elenya says, the corners of her lips rising into a smile. “How else are you going to defend yourself if you ever come across one? Everybody is taught how.”

“That’s nice,” Daeron says, a little strained, and then, “We should go back. Your mother will be looking for you, Elenya. Where are your shoes?”

“My mom doesn’t care enough to wonder where I went and when I’ll come back,” Elenya says, offhand, but she gets up and looks around the pavilion for her shoes, a pair of tall dark boots that don’t go with her dress at all. Luthien follows them, silent.

_How else are you going to defend yourself if you ever come across one?_

Clearly, that is a very good point. Luthien hadn’t considered that. If you’re constantly in danger, unsafe, what better to keep safe than knowing how to defend yourself? Luthien doesn’t think it’s a Noldo tradition—Galadriel has told her about some of them, and Tirion in Valinor sounds a lot like Menegroth—but more a tradition born out of need for survival when they came here. After all, if Luthien’s mother hadn’t encircled Doriath with her magic, they would still be vulnerable to Morgoth’s attacks, they would be unsafe, living in danger. Maybe, if things were like that, they too would teach everyone how to fight.

“Are you okay?” Daeron asks her, when Elenya has walked a bit forward by herself. He looks concerned, and Luthien smiles at him brightly.

“I’m fine,” Luthien says. “I just never considered how the war would make you see the world, you know? But it makes sense that everyone knows how to fight—why her father keeps sending her weapons.”

“They’re surviving,” Daeron shrugs. “So are we. What more is there to it?”

“Yeah,” Luthien agrees absent-mindedly. There’s something else that she can’t really put into words, a thought that’s more like a feeling she can’t out into words, and Luthien decides that it doesn’t matter.

She lives in Doriath, in Menegroth. Every place is different.

“Is that a dagger?” someone asks, and Luthien looks up to see Lord Oropher’s son, a boy around Elenya’s age with the same blond hair and clear eyes as his father, regarding the object in Elenya’s hands. He’s dressed properly, ready to attend the conference.

“What do you care?” Elenya snaps, holding the dagger protectively. “It’s mine.”

“It looks pretty,” Thranduil says, with all the awe of a child no more than thirty. Elenya continues to eye him suspiciously, but her protective hold on the dagger loosens a little.

“Isn’t it?” she asks back, and it seems like she can’t hold back a smile. “My dad gave it to me.”

Thranduil smiles back hesitantly, and Luthien grabs hold of Daeron’s sleeve excitedly.

“Look!” she gushes. “She’s making friends! Didn’t I say she would make friends?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Daeron sighs. “You said. Stop tugging my sleeve—you’ll ruin it.”

“Oh, it’s going to take something more than that to ruin your clothes, Daeron,” Luthien rolls her eyes. “Stop being such a drama queen. Look, Elenya is doing so well!”

“Thranduil!” Oropher calls, and both kids startle. “Come here! Do you want us to be late?”

“Oh, stop it,” his wife says. “Will it kill you to be nice to someone for once? Can’t you see your son is making friends?”

“With the wrong kind of people,” Oropher mutters, but Elenya skips towards them, Thranduil hot on her heels and looks up at them with a smile.

“Lady Calwen, do you know where my mother is?” she asks.

“Somewhere around here, I’m sure,” Lady Calwen says. She flashes a very fake smile at Elenya, and motions for Thranduil to go stand next to her.

“I have to go find Ithilbor,” Daeron tells her, and Luthien nods, making shooing motions at him as she approaches the group of elves in front of her.

“Elenya!” she calls, to get her attention. “Come with me. We have to find you a pretty dress first, don’t you think?”

Elenya smiles at her, and Luthien smiles back.

Her father is the King, and as the King, he makes the decisions that are best for their people. Luthien does believe that. But she also believes that a lot of people are being unfair with their attitude towards the Noldor; Elenya is a child, and she deserves to love her father without people judging her for it. When she’s older, she will make her own choices.

The important part is that they are all free to make their own choices.

**Author's Note:**

> comments always bring me joy
> 
> find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/e_fairylights) and [tumblr](https://feanoriansappreciation.tumblr.com/). fic retweetable [here](https://twitter.com/e_fairylights/status/1343653833478647810?s=20)


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